Doodah Diva

“Making the decision to have a child – It’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”- Elizabeth Stone

I love quotes. I’m the type to find something I like, cut it out and hang it up on my bulletin board. But I’ve realized something – I don’t like quotes that don’t tell me what to do, or at least infer what to do.

I’ve always liked the one above. Even before I was a mom I got the heavy concept. And now that I am a mom? Woah.

But all it does is state the obvious: as a mom, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into? Now we have to worry every day about our damn heart walking around, getting into trouble, walking out into traffic, getting kidnapped, having mean kids pick on it or developing some sort of horrific infection? What do we do about that?

How about some ideas, people….

Last week, the day care hosted a Trike-a-Thon – a fundraiser to benefit St. Jude’s hospital. All week the class reviewed trike safety skills and then on Thursday they went to the park to practice what they learned. I even met the class at the park (a block from our house) to witness the event. Super sweet, right?

This was my first school-related “Oh, SHIT, I’m a bad mother” moments. I only skimmed the materials they sent home and assumed the school would have bikes for the kids to use. Since Miss J. did not have a tricycle anyway, we showed up for the Trike-a-thon empty handed.

Only J. and another little dude were trike-less. I’d apparently missed a major directive: bring your own trike to the Trike-a-Thon.

And, when all the kids were lined up on their respective two and three wheelers, J. says, “Where’s MY bike?”

Hello, bullet through the heart.

Luckily, the teachers anticipated slacker moms like me and had a couple of extras.

HOWEVER, “Get J. a tricycle” was first on our list of things to do on Friday. We surprised her with her new pink radio flyer and princess helmet Saturday morning and she loves it!

Note to self: read school instructions from now on. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways I can screw up my kids. Being prepared for school events is at least something I can control. Sigh.